


the voice of home inside my head

by multifanwho



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: A little bit sad tbh, F/F, Fluff and Angst, One Shot, Short One Shot, Thasmin if you squint, ignore that this is the second time i've written something like this and just take it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multifanwho/pseuds/multifanwho
Summary: After being released from prison and gathering up her friends, the Doctor visits the library, hoping to reassure herself that she knows who she is by speaking to the woman who knows her best in all her forms.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 74





	the voice of home inside my head

“You’ve got to stop coming here.”

River appears in her white gown next to the Doctor, sitting on the open doorstep of the rickety old blue box with their thighs pressed together and their feet dangling above the library.

“I can’t let you go, you know that.” The Doctor looks across to her love for the first time with these new eyes. She’s missed her. Took a while to remember her, only realising when she found her wedding ring under a grate in the console room during some maintenance. She thought remembering might fill a gap in her hearts but instead it makes the hole bigger.

“What is it this time?” River asks, her face softening. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“Nothing. I just wanted to see my wife.” The doctor digs deep into her trouser pocket to pull out a brown paper bag filled with slightly hard jelly men. “Sweet?” She offers.

“I’m a data interface sweetie, I can’t eat anything you give me.” River gently smiles at her.

“Oh. Right. I always forget that.” The Time Lord mumbles with her head dipping lower between her shoulders.

“I can touch you though.” River reaches out and the Doctor sits as still as possible; eyes closed and focusing on her breathing to make sure she doesn’t let herself cry at simply the back of her hand stroking her cheek. She can feel her, as real as day, but if anyone were to look over or walk in it would only be the Doctor there and River’s touch can be argued as a figment of her imagination. “Still so alone. My lonely Doctor.”

“I have friends with me.” The Doctor takes the dead woman’s hand in her own and holds the two intertwined in her lap.

“Really? Tell me about them.” River requests.

“Well there’s Ryan. Young lad, very excitable. Catches me when I trip and fall almost every time and always has- literally from the first night I met him. Regeneration, you know how it is. Then there’s his granddad, Graham-”

“I thought you didn’t do families.” River smirks and squeezes the Doctor’s hand- which is somehow more pale than Rivers’.

“Things change. And anyway it’s not just those two, I also have Yaz.”

“Yaz?” River raises an eyebrow. The Doctor doesn’t pick up on it.

“Yeah. Yaz is…”

A strange lump grows in her throat, not permitting the Doctor to come up with the right words. That’s never happened before. She’s always talked about Yaz so freely and there is always a bank of at least a million words available to spill out and describe her faithful companion. But no words come- no, actually, too many words come all at once and the Doctor simply can’t find the right one to start with. How do you even start to describe someone like Yasmin Khan?

“It’s like that is it?” River’s smirk turns into a grin.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

The Doctor squints at her, unable to figure out what she means. So, she trusts her, and treats the comment like it’s nothing. She turns back to the quiet leaking out of the library and into the atmosphere. Her friends are sleeping somewhere in their rooms deep in the belly of the TARDIS where they’re safe and warm. Protected. She wonders if it’s as quiet there as it is out here, whether it’s as peaceful.

“You don’t seem like yourself.” River comments.

The Doctor rests her head against the side of her trusty box, not able to trust herself in resting her head on River’s shoulder because River will run her other hand through her hair or kiss the top of her head and she’ll crumble. She doesn’t want to crumble.

“I don’t know who I am anymore.” The Doctor helplessly sighs. She still doesn’t know if she should be grateful or not for the Master informing her about her hidden and forgotten past.

“You’re the Doctor.” River chuckles like it’s that simple.

“I can’t remember who I was before I took that title.” The Doctor grumbles.

“Isn’t that the point of changing your name? Forget who you were before, Melody Pond?”

“Now, it’s been a while since I’ve been called that.” River gives a throaty laugh, one that vibrates through the Doctor’s bones, somehow making her feel warm and loved despite only being a voice inside her head. “Imagine if they’d called me Melody Williams.”

“Melody Williams is a geography teacher.” The Doctor recites a very deep memory.

The two women giggle sitting next to each other and so content in just sitting there the Doctor notes her legs swinging back and forth in the open air like she’s a child. A child. Her childhood. Her childhood of constant forced regenerations. Her legs stop swinging.

“I miss you.” River whispers with a level of melancholy.

“I wish you could travel with me.” The Doctor says.

“I’m always with-”

“You’re always with me, yeah yeah yeah.” The Doctor finishes her sentence for her with a hint more sarcasm. River looks hurt by it. “Sorry.”

“Just…” River rests her own head on the Doctor’s shoulder and pushes her body into her side. In some ways the Doctor resents it, especially how the feel of her body is both heavy and almost impossibly light at the same time and her hair is tickling her chin but it’s like a phantom itch. It’s weird. “Think about how somewhere, some-when, in the whole of time and space I’m with the Doctor and he’s looking after me just as much as I’m looking after him.”

“I want you to be with me now.” The Doctor selfishly admits her wants, her needs.

“I do too- trust me I do. So much. Especially with this new body.” River lifts her head and winks.

“Steady.” The Doctor begins to blush.

“You’re so beautiful this time around.” River compliments.

“Thanks?” The Doctor can’t figure out if that’s actually more of a back handed compliment.

“I mean it.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean beautifully damaged?” The Doctor allows herself to be a little dramatic.

“Damaged how?” River’s brow rises with concern.

“I’ve not had this body for long and it- I’ve already been through so much. Too much.” The Doctor confesses.

Before she has a chance to even digest what she’s telling her, the Doctor spots that River’s ears prick up at what must be a sound the Doctor can’t hear.

“One of your friends is coming.” River says, moving away.

“No- don’t go yet! I don’t want you to go yet, I have so much to tell you.” The Doctor desperately clings onto her wife’s hand.

“I’m always-”

“River.” The Doctor pleads.

“I’m right behind you.”

“Doctor?” Yaz’s voice calls out.

“Over here.” The Doctor says, accepting that she can’t hide from Yaz. What would she say as a lie to get her to go away. She can’t lie in front of Yaz. She can only twist the truth (slightly).

“What are you doing up?” The Doctor puts on a smile as she twists her tired and aching body around to see Yaz in her PJ’s carrying a thick square of fabric in her arms.

“Thought you were cold so I brought a blanket.” Yaz gives her a sleepy grin to punctuate her excuse.

“That doesn’t answer my question.” The Doctor doesn’t smile back at her.

Yaz’s mask of false confidence slips slightly, turning her toothy grin into a small closed lip smile “I heard you talking. Thought you might like some company.” She admits softly, like that fact she could hear might embarrass the older one of them.

“Jelly baby?” The Doctor offers up the brown paper bag before the blanket- and her bubbling up emotions- swallow her whole.

“Yes please.” Yaz scoots underneath the only slightly scratchy blanket with her which was not what the Doctor was expecting. She thought she would take one then disappear again back to bed but she’s shuffling right up next to her, letting the Doctor have the majority of the blanket but still sneaking a fraction for herself to drape over her shoulders. Her hand disappears into the paper bag and the Doctor realises that unlike River, Yaz is real. Just as real as Ryan and Graham and she’s here sitting next to her, able to eat and speak and the Doctor isn’t the only one that can hear her. “Can I have two?” Yaz asks.

“Take as many as you want.” The Doctor shrugs; her mind still trying to comprehend

Yaz is polite and only takes the two, an orange one and a black one.

“Who were you talking to?” Yaz asks with inquisitive curiosity, picking at the sweets which the Doctor knows is just a ploy to make it look like she’s not that interested in the answer.

“Oh- no one. Just myself.”

Yaz doesn’t accept that answer. She usually does, but that was before the Doctor went missing. Before she went dead but wasn’t dead and turned up alive and probably traumatized this poor girl for life.

“Doctor, what really happened to you in prison?” Yaz asks like it’s been on her mind since she found out where the Doctor was all that time. It probably _has_ been on her mind since she found out.

 _“Prison?!”_ River mouths, having appeared visibly again, hovering like a proper ghost outside of the TARDIS. The Doctor had no idea she could do that.

“Long story.” The Doctor mutters and rolls her eyes at a somewhat impressed looking River.

“I have time.” Yaz says even though the two words weren’t directed at her but then how was she to know? To her there’s only the two of them there. “All the time in the world for you, Doctor.”

Yaz then wraps her arms around the Doctor’s torso, abandoning her sweets for later, and the Doctor freezes as her head rests heavier than her hearts on her shoulder. A hug. A proper hug and it makes the Doctor’s breath shake. She can feel every part of her pressing into her side as the young human curls up against her with so much trust and time to listen- willing to share a portion of her life to learn about the Doctor’s ancient history, most of which she doesn’t even remember. It’s so hard to think of something to say because of it. 

Instead of finding words the Doctor holds onto Yaz’s knee under the blanket, squeezing every so often in the middle of the quiet to show she’s okay. However, when she feels the whispering touch of River’s hand stroking the top of her head, the Doctor breaks and hot droplets of salt water fall from her eyes. Just as silently as the library below her and thankfully, just like the library below her, she’s not alone in the midst of it. Ever.

**Author's Note:**

> this came to me in a dream and I wrote it in like 2 hours so I literally do not know if it makes any sense at all but !


End file.
